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Installation Guide for Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

As Cisco ISE doesn't directly support sending authentication logs to an HTTP destination, we will be using a syslog Forwarder.
Our setup will look like this:
ISE Overview

1. What You'll Need​

1. Virtual Machine with the following specs:

- 2 CPU Cores

- 4 GB RAM

- 20 GB Hard Disk

- 1x Network Interface

2. A valid NxtFireGuard License Key

2. Install the Latest Ubuntu or Debian Server OS 🐧​

3. Update Package Sources and Upgrade Packages 🔄​

sudo apt-get update -y && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

4. Install Docker 🐳​

4.1 For Debian 11 & 12

Remove Conflicting Packages ❌​

for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose podman-docker containerd runc; do sudo apt-get remove $pkg; done

Add Docker’s GPG Key 🔑​

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

Add Docker Repository to Apt Sources 📦​

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update

Install Docker Packages 📥​

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Verify Installation ✅​

sudo docker run hello-world
4.2 For Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04 & 20.04

Remove Conflicting Packages ❌​

for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose docker-compose-v2 podman-docker containerd runc; do sudo apt-get remove $pkg; done

Add Docker’s GPG Key 🔑​

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

Add Docker Repository to Apt Sources 📦​

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update

Install Docker Packages 📥​

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Verify Installation ✅​

sudo docker run hello-world

5. Install Git 🛠️​

sudo apt-get install git -y

6. Create User & Add to Docker Group 👤​

6.1 Create a User​

Replace <username> with the desired username.

sudo adduser <username>

6.2 Add New User to Docker Group​

sudo usermod -aG docker <username>

7. Clone Repository & Start Container 📦​

7.1 Switch to New User​

su <username>
cd

7.2 Download latest Release of "NxtFireGuard-Syslog-forwarder" Repository on GitHub​

git clone https://github.com/NxtGenIT/NxtFireGuard-Syslog-forwarder.git && cd NxtFireGuard-Syslog-forwarder

7.3 Set your License Key​

Replace YOUR_ACTUAL_LICENSE_KEY with your purchased license key.

sed -i 's/<your-license-key>/YOUR_ACTUAL_LICENSE_KEY/g' syslog/syslog-ng.conf

7.4 Start Docker Container​

docker compose up -d

Next Steps​

Setup Log Forwarding from ISE to the Container​

Read this Documentation from Cisco to forward logs of category AAA Audit Logs to the Log Relay Server.

Once the setup is complete, you can return to the Adding a Host section to verify the connection.

For any questions or issues, feel free to reach out to our support team via this Contact Form.